The Open Tree of Life project (OpenTree) is enabling a community-assembled tree of life by synthesizing the wealth of phylogenetic data published / being published by the scientific community and providing the means to update and refine the draft tree. Our four major goals:

Build and make publicly available the first complete draft tree of life, capturing the depth of knowledge about biodiversity on Earth

Engage the community in refinement and annotation of the draft tree

Promote a culture of data sharing among systematists through software products that target key bottlenecks in phylogenetic workflows

Project documentation

Funding

Open Tree of Life is funded by the National Science Foundation (grant #DEB-12008809). You can see copies of the original grant proposal as well as the Supplemental Grant Proposal on the Grant Proposal page.